Wood is an important building material, carbon store, climate proxy and, together with the phloem, enables the efficient transport of water, nutrients andmetabolites along plants’ axes. Secondary growth is therefore a process of high importance for the economy, climate mitigation and ecophysiology. Its dynamics are governed by intrinsic factors related to phylogenetic, phenological, and ecophysiological traits, and extrinsic influences such as soil, climate, and biotic interactions. However, despite its substantial ecosystemic and economic relevance, the processes involved in secondary growth are still poorly understood. Due to its confined position between opaque tissues, the vascular cambium is not amenable to in vivo observations and molecular techniques, which have been instrumental in understanding the development of apical meristems. Overcoming these limitations requires a variety of approaches and truly interdisciplinary research.
Secondary growth has been studied in diverse and creative ways by multiple disciplines, but the results of this research is usually scattered across various non-specialised journals. This special collection aims to increase our process-understanding by bringing together current research on wood and phloem formation in one place, through either research articles, reviews, or opinion papers. With a multidisciplinary approach and a multiscale perspective, ranging from the molecular and cellular scales to the individual level, we welcome contributions including:
- Recent progress in quantitative wood anatomy and secondary growth monitoring, especially new methodologies and new analytical tools, including deep learning.
- Statistical modeling of wood and phloem formation.
- Process-based and/or biophysical modeling of wood and phloem formation.
- Functional ecology of wood and phloem formation (e.g., reaction wood, thigmomorphogenesis, hydraulics).
- Cellular/molecular research on cambial cell division, cell identity acquisition, enlargement, wall thickening and lignification.
- Cellular/molecular research on secondary growth in herbaceous species, including the model species Arabidopsis thaliana.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 31st MARCH 2025
Please submit your articles via the Quantitative Plant Biology ScholarOne site and select ‘Advances in xylem and phloem formation research' from the special collection dropdown menu. Please email Alison Paskins with any questions about the collection.
Guest Editors:
Antoine Cabon, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL | [email protected]